


Gonna Be Your A Team

by Sauternes



Category: Brooklyn Nine-Nine (TV)
Genre: Amy Santiago has anxiety that she manages with exercise, Bisexual Jake Peralta, F/M, Fake/Pretend Relationship, Fitness Instructor AU, Friends With Benefits, Mutual Pining, Pining, Slow Burn, fitness instructor Amy, grad student Amy, panic attacks (past)
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-02-10
Updated: 2018-05-17
Packaged: 2019-03-16 04:08:10
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 5
Words: 9,560
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13628304
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Sauternes/pseuds/Sauternes
Summary: Amy Santiago is one of the top fitness instructors in Brooklyn, beloved by her overachieving Insanity Workout and Aquatherapy for Arthritis classes alike. She’s also an art history graduate student, member of the NYC Fitness Club all-time trivia championship team, and very, very single. Terry is a member of her gym, and is constantly struggling to get his most frustrating detective to be more serious about getting and staying in shape. So naturally Jake gets dragged to “Core-dio fitness” (Amy loves a pun). His poor form leads to extra attention from the teacher, but she maintains professional boundaries (until a meddling student and a Christmas party lead to some Jake Peralta kissing, and maybe more).





	1. Core-dio class 1

**Author's Note:**

> Title is an homage to the latest T Swift album as well as the whole good at sports concept

“Stop, NYPD!” Jake shouts as the man he and Terry had been tracking suddenly notices their presence and breaks into an all-out sprint. _Damnit_ , he thinks to himself. Now even the money launderers need to try to make a run for it? He takes off after the suspect, adrenaline coursing through his veins. After four blocks the adrenaline begins to wear thin, and he’s huffing and puffing. After four more blocks, the perp (deceptively wan and middle-aged looking) cuts around a tight corner and starts booking it up a steep flight of stairs that leads into one of the remote corners of Prospect Park. Terry barrels after him, getting ahead of Jake and taking up the entire narrow staircase with his massive frame. Jake continues at the same breakneck pace, his legs burning with every step.

The perp loses his footing on the last step, and stumbles into the park, leaving time for Jake and Terry to catch and cuff him. As Jake begins to recite the Miranda rights he feels bile rising in his throat. He pauses mid-sentence, gulping and staring at the sun, trying to blink tears out of his eyes and swallow down spit between “attorney” and “one will be provided for you.”

Terry senses something is off and takes the perp’s hands. As soon as he does, Jake dashes into the bushes, bends over, and heaves.

“Jake, damn!” Terry shouts.

“I’m totally fine, Sarge!” Jake calls back, still gulping air. “Must have been the curry Boyle brought in for lunch today.”

 “Jake, you told everyone in the bullpen that you would never touch something that smelled like it came from the mating of a direwolf and an orc.”

 Jake rolls his eyes. Damn his incisive pop-culture commentary for being so memorable.   

 “Fine, maybe I’m a little, teensy bit winded,” he huffs. “It’s been a while since we’ve had to chase a perp up a flight of stairs.” He pauses again, “But I chased three guys last week and it was totally fine! Caught them all. One caught himself tripping on a subway grate, but I’m still counting it.” He finishes his sentence, leaning over again to catch his breath.

 “I’m not really worried about the perps getting away so much as I am about you having a heart attack in the process,” Terry looks uncomfortably at Jake, who is beginning to stand again, forehead sweaty, face a bright tomato red.  

They begin to walk the perp towards the edge of the park. Terry radios for a squad car to come meet them at the park police stand. By the time the beat cops pull up Jake can feel his heart rate slowing back down, and the sweat on his forehead beginning to dry.

“Fine, Sarge. I’ll go to the gym more often.” He really does sort of want to go to the gym more, it’s just always hard to get to work on time as it is, so going before work is ruled out. And work days are so long and unpredictable and he’s always just a little bit hungry which can’t be good for exercising? Plus working out is hard.

“Why don’t you come with me?” Terry replies. “Terry’s started doing more plyometrics and footwork.”

“Uh, thanks Sarge,” Jake says. “And let the record show that I totally kept up with you during our last workout together. But maybe it’s better to, you know, not interrupt your flow?” he trails off

“Nice try, Peralta. You’re not getting out of this one. Come to the gym with me tomorrow afternoon- it’s near the precinct. We’ll go to a new class I have been wanting to try.”

“Fiiiiine,” Jake replies, already brainstorming potential case emergencies that he could use to get out of the precinct tomorrow.  

*~*~*~

Amy Santiago arrives to her 4pm High Intensity Cardio Strength Builder class 15 minutes early, per usual. And as usual, the teen kickboxing class is still wrapping up when she enters the room and begins to write out the agenda and instructions for the day’s workout on the large whiteboard by the windows. She’s got a latte in one hand and the dry erase marker in the other. She managed to fit in her own workout this morning despite being up until almost 1 AM grading papers for her Intro to Impressionism class. She would never TA a class with Prof. Wunch again. The woman hated undergrads, and while Amy had won her over with her incredibly thorough work ethic, it didn’t make grading forty single-spaced 15-page essays any less painful.

The workout she has planned for today involves a lot of jumping and some floor ladder work, since it helps to keep her awake on days like this, when the grind of being a full-time art history grad student and tortured TA and almost full-time fitness instructor has taken its toll.  

Her students start to trickle in as she puts her finishing touch on the whiteboard- a lopsided smiley face meant to encourage the students and lift her own spirits. The elderly Professor Song is already settling in by gathering a mat and some small hand weights, while Callie and Fatima, two endlessly chatty twenty-somethings, conference at the water fountain.

“Amy! I want you to meet someone,” a cheery voice calls out. She turns to see Terry, a favorite sometimes- student and ridiculously jacked human teddy bear, with a curly-haired man about her age trailing behind him.

Terry places an arm around the younger man’s shoulders, “This is Jake. He’s one of the detectives on my squad. Got a little winded on the job the other day so thought he could use some of the Santiago magic.”

“The Sarge and I are definitely at very similar levels of physical fitness, so I’m not at all worried about this class,” Jake says with an ear-to-ear grin that is not replicated on Terry’s face.

“It’s nice to meet you, Jake,“ Amy replies.  “Terry can help you get set up if you need anything. Most classes you’ll just need a mat and some light weights, maybe a jump rope. We’ll get started in just a minute.”

Terry points Jake to a spot in the back of the studio (he always needs more space than the other participants), and Amy puts on her microphone headset (her least favorite part of the job) to call the class to order.

“Welcome to High Intensity Cardio Strength Builder,” she begins. “Or, as I like to call it, _Core-dio Fitness_.” She pauses for laughter- she’d thought of that pun last night while grading, and was proud of it- but is met by silence. Clearly she needs to up her pun game, she thinks to herself, and then continues, “We’ve got a fun workout today! It’s nice to see some new faces in class. As always, any music complaints can be fielded by Professor Song.” The old lady winks to the class, most of whom don’t know that she is a semi-retired professor of music composition as well as an avid appreciator of 90s hip-hop.

Amy presses play on one of her go-to Spotify playlists and begins to lead the class through a warm-up. She’s not quite in her zone today, but the jumping jacks and lunges (and the latte kicking in) are helping her to keep her eyes open.

Partway through the second circuit she notices that the new guy (Jack?) is dripping sweat and looking around the room with an expression that’s a combination of confusion and terror. She continues to offer banal encouragement over the microphone while she walks towards him to see what is wrong.

“You need to alternate hands on this move,” she tells him quietly, covering the mouthpiece. “Like this.” She drops down next to him, and demonstrates the move again.

“Ok, thanks,” the man breathes heavily, turning even redder than before. She returns to her position in the front of the class, only to notice that he’s somehow managed to try to jump over his own hands during the transition from plank to standing, and she stifles a giggle. She really mustn’t have gotten enough sleep last night.

He does a little bit better during the rest of the class, but she has to resist the urge to laugh every time she sees him jump- his face twists into a look of such intense concentration that she would think it was a joke if he weren’t simultaneously turning beet red.

By the end-of-class cooldown everyone except Terry is looking pretty wiped out; he’s already back on his feet and saying something about seeing his baby girls as he waves goodbye. His curly-headed friend, on the other hand, is still lying on his mat, staring up at the ceiling with a blank expression on his face.

Amy walks over to him, “Are you ok?”

“Oh yeah, I’m just doing some extra sit-ups. Sarge said I’d be tired at the end of this workout, but I feel so good I’m doing extra exercise,” the man states as he remains, totally unmoving, on the mat, his shirt nearly soaked through with sweat.

Normally this kind of weird bravado gets on Amy’s nerves: she’s an academic and a young, Latina woman in a very macho field, but something about this guy makes her want to laugh with him. “Ok, well, don’t work too hard. Wouldn’t want Terry to get insecure.”

The man chuckles deeply, then groans and grabs his stomach as the laughter shakes his abs.

“The next class doesn’t start for 15 more minutes.” Amy tells him, “So take your time with that additional ab work.”  

He slowly raises his arm to give her a thumbs-up sign, and she chuckles and gathers her things to head to the library for a few hours before her evening class. This day was maybe looking up a little bit, after all.  

 


	2. Jake Peralta, gym rat

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Jake decides maybe getting in shape is a good idea after all

Jake is still sweaty and out of breath on the floor five minutes after everyone else in the class leaves. He’s fairly sure that a janitor came in at some point and didn’t vacuum because he was spotted lying there, but can’t be sure because finding out would have involved lifting his head, which would use his abs, which would make them hurt. Meanwhile, visions of the exercise instructor are dancing through his head: the way she pulled back her curtain of dark hair into a ponytail as she began the class, the fact that she both clearly respects and likes to make fun of Terry. Her terrible pun introduction. And he had made a total fool of himself.

He moans as he picks himself up off of the mat. Every muscle in his body aches. Do people have muscles between their ribs? It seems like they must given how achy his entire chest is.   

He waddles to the cleaning station and to the closet to put his mat away, and is walking almost normally by the time he nears his apartment. The stairs to his third-floor walkup present more of a challenge, and he has to stop three times (only once does he almost cry) before making it in the front door. He takes a hot shower, microwaves a burrito for dinner, and then opens his computer to check his work emails (#adulting, he thinks). An involuntary groan escapes when he sees an all-precinct email from the Captain about a new fitness testing policy. All officers with fewer than 10 years of experience or who want to be eligible for promotions must pass an annual physical, mile run, and sit-up and push-up test. The thresholds are not difficult, he could pass them right now (well, maybe not tonight right now, but in general, probably), but maybe it is a good idea to see if he can get more in shape. How often does this afternoon’s instructor teach? She definitely runs a good workout.

A couple seconds of googling lead him to the website of Brooklyn’s Finest Fitness, where a smiling picture of one Amy Santiago greets him as soon as he clicks on “meet our instructors.” She teaches two classes each on Monday, Tuesday, and Thursday, plus aqua aerobics on Wednesdays and Saturdays, and spinning on Sunday. Her bio mentions that she’s also a graduate  student in art history with an interest in forensics. He’s not totally sure what that means, but the next thing he knows he is signing up for a season pass for High Intensity Cardio something or other.

The next class goes about as well as the first one, and Terry isn’t there to physically shield him from being seen by the other students, who all seem to (even the old lady!) be better at squat jumps than he is. A couple of middle-aged blond women in the corner are making fun of him through side-long glances at each other, and even Amy stifles a giggle when he trips on his own feet during jump rope, but there is something warm in her eyes as she covers her smile with her hand and begins to walk towards him.

“You ok?” she takes the headset off completely.

He takes advantage of her talking to give up on the jump-roping for the time being. “Oh yeah, things are good in the neighborhood,” he says, and he’s regretting that response as soon as the words are out of his mouth. “It’s been a little while since I was my block’s double Dutch champion.”

She raises her eyebrows in reply, clearly uncertain as to whether he is joking or not.

He takes the bait, “Well, my neighbor Gina was more into it. And mainly jumped with my Nana while I turned the ropes. Nana was always very spry. We even had homemade bedazzled uniforms.”

“This might sound a little bit out there, but was your neighbor named Gina Linetti?”

“Um, yes how did you know that?”

“We have a dance team that practices here called Dance-y Reagan,” she rolls her eyes, “They used to meet before my Monday and Thursday classes. Gina bedazzled my headset once while I was writing out the workout for the day. I’d only been gone for a minute! And strangely she’s also talked about double Dutch with her neighbor’s Nana…”

“Amy, are we almost done with this set?” a voice rings out from the front of the studio.

Amy’s head whips around to look at the pace clock in the corner of the room. “Oh shit,” she whispers, and rapidly puts her headset back on. She strides across the room as she speaks, “And we’re wrapping up set one of jumping rope. You all did great at almost 90 seconds straight! Let’s transition to 15 box jumps and then grab a quick water break.”

Jake manages to survive the rest of class, and Amy only talks to him to correct his positioning during the transition from one-armed burpees to split lunges. Amy seems to be in a rush at the end of class, and Jake is left alone on the floor again, breathing heavily and aching all over. He gets up faster this time, he thinks, and dreams of the hot steam of the shower as he walks home, wobbly in the twilight.

The next day at work he waits for Terry to be seated at his desk, after a yogurt break, to subtly bring up the topic of exercise and especially whatever he might know about certain exercise instructors.

“Ter-bear, how’s it hanging?” Jake asks in a sing-songy voice.

“What do you want Jake?”

“I wanted to let you know that I have started exercising. I am very strong now,” he flexes a bicep. Terry reaches out to squeeze the muscle and Jake yelps in pain.

“Owww, Terry. My muscle fibers are somewhat delicate while they are building up. It’s part of the process.”

“Terry’s not impressed, but he is proud of you for making a fitness plan. And also maybe for thinking about the new fitness testing policy, and adherence to departmental policies in general.”

“Thanks! And I do wear a tie sometimes and am only slightly behind on paperwork this month! I’m actually going to that gym you dragged me to. I signed up for exercise class with, uh, I think Amy something? Might have been the same instructor as the class we went to together,” Jake makes sure his tone of voice is even, attempting not to betray the fact that he is fishing for information on her.

“She’s a great instructor!” Terry responds enthusiastically. “Though not particularly receptive to offering feedback on my artwork.”

“You never ask me to critique your art.”

“You’re not an expert in impressionism and forensic art history.”

“Cool, cool, good point and I do not know what that is.”

“Amy is a PhD student in art: her area of focus is impressionism, which is a painting style, and also forensics, a word you could use some context clues to apply to a new field, since you are a detective. It’s determining whether pieces of art are genuine or not. She’s an instructor at Brooklyn’s Finest because graduate students don’t make that much money and she’s the youngest of seven kids." 

“Ok, creepy much, Sarge?” Jake scoffs to try to hide his interest in this information and the fact that it suggests Terry has, in his usual Terry way, befriended Amy. “Anyway, since I’m so buff now I thought maybe I would take you up on your offer to try to get in shape. I go to class on Monday and Thursday if you want to join me.”

Terry nods, looking both confused and still hopefully about Jake’s new interest in getting in shape, but gets a phone call from Sharon before he can respond to Jake more thoroughly. The next Thursday when Jake walks into Core-dio fitness (he started calling it that after Amy tried her pun intro again this past Monday and looked dejected when no one except Professor Song laughed), Terry is already warming up in the back corner. Jake greets Terry and Amy, and wanders away to set up his mat and weights when the Sarge takes out Halloween pictures of Cagney and Lacey to show off (he’s already seen them three times this week). Then Sarge’s bulk manages to block Jake’s view for most of class, and Amy doesn’t come to correct his form even though he knows his plank is nowhere near flat. Then at the end Callie and Fatima corner Amy to ask about something that sounds like events coordination between the graduate schools they all attend. Jake decides to do some extra stretching (he can almost reach his toes now!), but Terry starts to look at him funny when he offers to “hang back and clean your mat, too, Sarge, and put some of your stuff away if you want.”

“Jake, why are you trying so hard to dilly-dally?” Terry asks.

“I’m not!” Jake whispers back. “I just like to make sure it’s neat when everyone leaves. You’re not always here, Sarge, but this can be a pretty rowdy crowd.”

“This is my gym, Peralta. It is very calm! Do you think Neil DeGrasse Tyson would work out somewhere hectic?”

“I suppose not,” Jake answers, and follows Terry out of the studio, depositing free weights and wiping down the mats as they go.

As soon as they make it outside of the main entrance of the gym, Terry turns to Jake and says, “Do you think maybe you’re in that class more to keep seeing the instructor than to get in shape?”

“What, no, Sarge, come on, I don’t, that’s ridiculous,” Jake sputters. “Anyway, you must be late for seeing your kids, so probably you should go do that. Love you and see you tomorrow!”He waves grandly and starts power-walking (with an almost normal gait) down the street towards his apartment, shaking his head as he goes. Terry loves love a little bit too much. Jake just respects and admires Amy’s well organized classes, he rationalizes. And maybe also her smile and silly jokes and the way she seems to always have a coffee in her hand while she writes out the plan for the day. He hates it when Terry is right. He has a huge crush on Amy Santiago.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks for reading. This is some of the slower part of the slow burn- exciting things to come in chapter 3!


	3. The Party

Professor Song approaches Amy after class the Monday before Thanksgiving. Callie and Fatima both left town early to visit family, so the studio is quieter than usual. Jake is doing his usual dawdling clean-up routine in the back corner.

“We should have a class holiday party,” Professor Song tells Amy in a voice twice as loud as she usually uses. “So many kind faces in this room every week; it would be nice to get to know everyone.”

Amy hesitates before responding. The period between Thanksgiving and the Christmas break is one of the worst parts of the semester: she has her own thesis progress deadlines and review sessions and exam proctoring for the undergrads. Then grading all of the exams. But she also really loves all of her students here, and she’s known so many of them for a long time at the gym, it could be pleasant to get to know them over a drink. One drink- won’t even take that long.

“I would come by for a little bit if you organize something,” Amy replies cheerily as she mentally arranges and rearranges her schedule. “The pre-holidays are a kind of hectic time, but I really do value all of you.”

“Perfect!” Professor Song says, “I’ve got an evite queued up; I’ll ask Kylie to send it out to everyone who’s registered for any of your classes. She wouldn’t let me have the list myself last time I asked.”

“You know Kylie, she’s a stickler for the rules, but that’s why she’s the best,” Amy laughs, already excited to hear Kylie’s account of fending off the tiny but enthusiastic woman. They tend to catch up weekly at Wednesday night trivia, but the NYC Fitness Club Trivia Bowl doesn’t host events in November or December, so Amy is going to head over to Kylie’s for takeout and Jeopardy tonight. This means Amy has some time to kill before Kylie officially wraps things up in the business office. She bids Professor Song good luck and notices that Jake is still in the studio despite the fact that his mat is put away and his coat is half on. He’s fiddling intently with his phone, but as both an art historian and a fitness instructor Amy is trained to be observant, and she is pretty convinced he’s pretending to be engaged while he waits for something. For her? They often chat for a minute or two after class, usually about how much she’s torturing everyone with her workouts, but sometimes also about Terry or funny things that happened at the precinct where Jake works.  

“You did pretty well today!” Amy speaks a little louder than she would have normally to make clear that she is speaking to him.    

“Well, I’m learning from the best.”

“You probably were busy while we were chatting but it sounds like Professor Song is going to invite all the classes to a holiday party. I hope you can make it,” she says hastily, hoping he hasn’t noticed her slight blushing at his compliment. “I mean, I don’t even know where it’s going to be, or when.”

Jake’s phone buzzes in his hand, “Let’s see. An evite from Joyce Song via Kylie of Brooklyn’s Finest: Join us for a Holiday Fitness Celebration. December 14th at 8:15pm. Shaw’s Bar. That’s a very specific time.”

“The last evening class on Fridays gets out at 8,” Amy explains. “Do you think you will be able to make it?”

“Definitely! Unless there’s an important police emergency.”

“Right, obviously. I’ll be there too. Unless there’s an important art history emergency,” she forces a laugh and kicks herself mentally for saying something so stupid. What is it about this doofus of a cop that gets her so flustered?

 

*~*~*~*

Amy prides herself on being on time, so she’s delighted to arrive to Shaw’s at 8:12 pm despite having had a thesis committee meeting, two review sessions, and a fitness class today. Shaw’s is a dive bar that is apparently only a few blocks from both the gym and her apartment that she’s somehow never noticed or been to before. The somehow is the ridiculous amount that she works, she thinks. It’s not that she doesn’t have a life: she goes to mixers and wine and cheese parties with her classmates, has trivia night almost every week, hangs out with Kylie occasionally. But an actual planned night “out”? It might have been September, when she and her co-TA Alina had a little bit too much to drink at the welcome back to school party the second-year PhD students hosted.

Professor Song waves at her enthusiastically from a table in the middle of the bar. The older woman is dressed to the nines, with a plastic tiara on her head and a collection of Christmas crackers on the table in front of her.

“Amy! I’ve got a crown for you, too.”  

“That’s nice, Professor Song. I can’t really stay that long though. Maybe one drink. I’ve got some papers to grade and revisions due from my thesis committee. You know how it is.”

“I’m an old lady now, Amy, grad school was a long time ago. All I remember was sneaking out of the ladies’ dorm after curfew to go to jazz clubs. Those were good times. You kids these days work too hard! Part of it’s our fault of course,” she pauses “But we’re not here to talk about academia- let me buy you a drink.”

Amy protests, but before she knows it Professor Song has managed to extract her beer preferences and is passing her an opened bottle.

“So, uhh, who RSVP’d for tonight?” Amy asks after a gulp of the beer. It’s approaching 8:20 and she’s seen no one else she recognizes enter the bar.

“Don’t worry, Detective Peralta said he would attend,” Professor Song smiles.

“I’m not sure who that is,” she starts, then a realization dawns, “Oh, you mean Jake the cop? No I wasn’t thinking of anyone in particular,” Amy stammers and takes another sip of her beer to buy some time. This whole thing was a dumb idea. Who wants to go to a gym party? Why did she agree to this? A vision of a wide grin dances in the back of her head, and she tries to push it away. She’s too busy and too professional to have a crush on a student, and certainly to rearrange her whole schedule for the week just to see if that student shows up to socialize outside of class. She starts to formulate escape plans while ostensibly talking to Professor Song about the latest construction on the R train and whether the humanities are valued sufficiently in today’s society.

A few minutes later some of the regulars from spinning wander in; they trend a little bit younger than Professor Song and even Amy, and squeal with delight when they see the party hats and mardi gras beads that Professor Song pulls from her bag. It turns out they are heading out to another party later, and are enchanted by Professor Song’s tales of dorms with curfews and seeing Tupac live in concert. By 8:45 more students have trickled in, and Amy’s almost-empty beer is swapped out for a full one by Prof Song. Amy thinks about declining, but then sees Prof Song’s smile, and decides that one more beer can’t hurt. Maybe it will make the words will flow a little more freely when she hits the revisions later tonight?

The conversation is surprisingly pleasant, and flows easily. Partway through the second beer Amy is ever so slightly buzzed, and begins to loudly recount the story of her first semester as a TA when a student arrived to the final exam completely uncertain as to whether she had signed up for Intro to Art History or Intro to American History. 

At 9:15, she catches a frazzled looking Jake (or Detective Peralta, apparently) rush into the bar. He slows down when he sees the group, and awkwardly pulls up a chair to the end of the table farthest away from Amy. She smiles and waves at him as he introduces himself to the women on either side of him. She turns her head back towards Callie, who is recounting the story of the latest pro-union organizing campaign happening amongst the City College graduate students. Ten minutes later the spinning crew begins to make their farewells, and the denizens of the far end of the table drag their chairs closer to Amy and Professor Song. Fatima takes this opportunity to order the next round of drinks, but gets a phone call not long after sitting back down, and then makes some rushed apologies and exits alongside Callie and two other young women who had been end of the table people Amy thinks started coming to to a few classes here and there recently.

“Gotta run, Amy. Thanks for organizing this! Consider those last drinks a treat from your City College admirers,” Fatima says as the friends gather their coats.

The flow of conversation dwindles down in the absence of Callie and Fatima’s social glue, and soon Amy, Jake, and Professor Song are the only ones left at the table, each having had an extra beer that one of Callie and Fatima’s friends had left behind untouched.

“Well, I am exhausted,” Professor Song announces with a dramatic yawn as soon as Anastasia and her husband make their farewells. Amy wrinkles her brow- just a minute before Professor Song had been energetically encouraging everyone to get up and dance (to “My Heart Will Go On,” of all songs). “You two will have to continue the party without me. I’ll see you at class on Monday.”

She leaves the table with her coat still in her arms, and her small frame disappears in the crowd within a matter of seconds.

“Sorry I was late,” Jake says. “There actually was police business to attend to.”

 “Oh, of course! Gotta keep the city safe for Christmas,” Amy replies with a smile.

“Actually I keep it safe for Hanukkah, but same basic idea,” he laughs. “No art history emergencies tonight?”

“No, the emergency will be tomorrow when the reality sets in that I skipped revisions to hang out in a dive bar all night.”

“Watch your voice when you say that! Shaw’s is the finest bar in Brooklyn, Amy! But also I won’t be offended if you need to go home now?”

Amy’s not sure whether she’s in the middle of drink three or four, but she knows it’s enough to dull the voice in the back of her head that’s always reminding her of thesis deadlines. It’s Friday night after all, and what would she accomplish by going home now, still slightly tipsy. Might as well sober up with some good company.

“No, I want some police stories before I go,” she says. “And to heat about how Terry is doing! I haven’t seen him in weeks, though I know he’s been around the gym because Gina was talking about him very loudly in the hall the other day.”

“Have you ever heard of the Ebony Falcon?” Jake says, leaning towards her across the table.

“No,” Amy responds warily.

“Well, then have I got the story for you,” Jake’s huge grin lights up his face. He launches into a story that involves missing sneakers, kittens, Times Square in the 90s, and the dramatic last-minute arrest of a bank robber whose MO involved hypnotizing tellers. Amy responds with the legend of the time her brother Manny tried to learn hypnosis.

All of a sudden Amy realizes it’s after midnight. “Oh shit!” she exclaims, making Jake startle in the middle of a story about a detective named Hitchcock who drank a goldfish last week. “It’s so late! I have to teach spinning in 8 hours and I am definitely not as hydrated as usual.”

“Oh yeah! Let’s go,” Jake replies with a smile. “I’ll walk you to the subway?”

“No subway, I live super close,” she says while putting on a second sweater.

“So too creepy to offer to walk you home then?” he asks.

“I will be fine, but it’s on the way to the subway for the first block, so we can head in that direction if that’s where you’re going,” she is putting on a scarf, mittens, and a hat at this point, and Jake starts to giggle.

“It’s almost 40 degrees out! Heat wave in December,” he smiles, standing there in his unzipped leather jacket.

She frowns under her hat, “I get cold.”

“I can see that,” he does an “after you” gesture, and she takes that as her cue to move towards the exit. The winter air isn’t’ as cold as it was earlier in the week, but it still feels like a slap to the face after the warmth of the bar. And somehow the cold seems to take with it not only Amy’s sense of warmth, but the easy comfort that had settled in during their conversation in the bar. They walk in total silence for a half a block, until Amy goes to turn right and Jake starts to turn left. They each realize they’re walking away from each other, and turn around, several paces apart.

“Good night I guess,” Amy starts, at the same time as Jake is muttering something about “I’m this way.”

She knows she should waive and walk away; go home and try to get some sleep, but she feels a magnetic pull to this particular spot on the sidewalk. It’s one of those moments when the world around her seems to drop away, and her constant stream of thoughts slow to a halt. Jake hasn’t moved either, she realizes. They both step closer to each other, closing the awkward gap between them synchronously.

And then she’s not sure exactly what comes over her, but as he reaches out his hand for what appears to be an impending awkward shake, she leans in to kiss him. She thinks she sees a flutter of confusion in his eyes and starts to wonder how quickly she can move her head backwards and still look normal, but then his lips meet hers. The kiss is short, and chaste, until it is not. She feels her arms rise to encircle his head, her fingertips graze his hairline, her breath speeding up, and then her reverie snaps like a twig. Reality hits her in the form of a cold breeze that picks up, and she whips her hands down to her side as she steps back.

“I’m so sorry, Jake. This was a bad idea. I have to go. Have a good night!”

She turns on her heel and walks deliberately, steadily towards home.


	4. Saturday

Jake can’t believe that just happened. How was it only a few hours ago that he was processing paperwork in the bullpen, wondering if he would make it to the party on time or should even go? Normally Christmastime police work is some of his favorite: the departmental toy drive, the haranguing of the captain to dress up as Santa, the ability to more accurately use lines from Die Hard. But today it seemed like every moment had dragged right up until he set foot in Shaw’s Bar. And then it took off like a rocket.

He can still feel the gentle pressure of Amy’s lips on his, the warmth of her arms around his neck, the tingle as her fingers danced along his hairline. He leans against the wall of a building; the icy brick cuts through his leather jacket and brings him back to earth. Fuck. She clearly is already regretting kissing him- why else would she have almost literally run away just now? He kicks an empty beer can down the sidewalk and starts his journey home. At least his apartment is nearby; it is in fact colder out than he expected.    

He drags himself up the stairs and throws himself onto his bed, face down, fully dressed. He rubs his eyes and breathes out slowly, then rolls into his back. Oh, Peralta, he thinks. Always the fool for love. He pulls his phone out of his pocket and opens tinder, hoping a few minutes of mindless swiping will take his mind off of Amy. She’s too tanning booth, he’s holding a fish, she’s into taxidermy. He sighs and puts down the phone. Tomorrow is a new day.  

Tomorrow is also, of course, his first full Saturday off in ages, and after he Swiffers the floors for the first time weeks, he isn’t really sure what to do with himself besides question his choices and wonder if he should wander to the gym and try to casually run into Amy in the hall after one of her classes. He goes so far as to look up her schedule before deciding that was weird and creepy; she broke off the kiss and clearly needs some space.

He contemplates texting Charles, or that girl he went on a couple of weird dates with back in November, but stops himself. He’s going to see Charles later today anyway, so texting now would just be suspicious. And what’s to be gained by maybe seeing this amateur astronomer (or astrologer? He doesn’t really know the difference) slash mixologist  anyway? Guess it’s time for some _Die Hard_ rewatching and microwave popcorn.

Two _Die Hard_ movies later, once he’s finally dragged himself out of the apartment, it’s actually a fine day. The sun is shining even though it’s cold, and the chill in the air is invigorating instead of stultifying. He has plans to meet Charles at some absurd new coffee place. Normally he harrumphed the arrival of each new Brooklyn hipster establishment like any other born-and-bred New Yorker, but this one promises cereal milk flavored donuts, which sound hard to resist. In true Brooklyn fashion the place has a line out the door even though it’s 3pm, but Charles reassures everyone in line that “they fry all day, so no dry texture here! Just warm, moist crumb on the palate.” The young women behind them visibly recoil at this announcement, and Jake makes apologetic, wide eyes and steps back from Charles.

The donuts end up being worth both the wait and the second-hand embarrassment, and by mid-way through his second one, Jake has almost forgotten about the events of last night. Then his phone buzzes. He doesn’t think much of it, and fishes it out of his hoodie with his left hand while continuing to eat the donut with his right.

There’s a text from a Brooklyn phone number that he doesn’t recognize. He opens it while nodding along as Charles takes copious notes on the mouth feel of the donuts for his newsletter.

_Getting your number was ethically questionable of me, but I wanted to apologize for last night. Do you have any time today to talk? I’m working on my thesis at a coffee shop near the gym if that works for you._

Another text buzzes through as he reads.

 _This is Amy Santiago, by the way_.

Jake reflexively starts saving her number in his contacts before thinking through the implications of the text. It’s a good thing Charles is distracted with his gross chewing technique because otherwise he’d be very jealous of the attention Jake is paying to his phone.

 **Ethics, shmethics,** he types and then quickly deletes. He tries again. **No problem.** He doesn’t like that either. Maybe being direct is the best approach.

**Sure that sounds good. Which place?**

Less than a minute later his phone buzzes again, and this time when he grabs it instantaneously off the table Charles does notice, and puts down his pen and voice recorder to do his Boyle cross-examination routine. There’s a reason Charles is such a good detective despite his unassuming exterior. He keeps the questions coming until you’re off balance, unless you know how to deflect.

“Ooh, Jakey, who ya texting? Hot new date? Is it the new detective from sex crimes downstairs? I hope it’s not that friend of yours from college who visited two weeks ago!”

“What? No, Charles, it’s just someone from the gym. That old lady I told you about needs to know if class is canceled for Christmas next week.”

“Jakey, Christmas isn’t for 10 more days.”

“Well she spent her childhood in a communist country and I’m Jewish so why should we be keeping track?” Jake retorts. “It’s close enough. And, for your information, class is in fact canceled. How are these donuts stacking up?”

Charles clearly doesn’t totally buy the excuse, but he does take the bait to resume discussing the donuts in excruciating detail, cross-checking his voice memos with his handwritten notes from the last gourmet donut shop they had schlepped all the way to a dock near Coney Island to visit.

Jake feels his phone buzz in his pocket a couple of more times, but resists taking it out lest Boyle become suspicious again. He’s not sure why he feels so protective of whatever this experience with Amy has been, but he’s wary of exposing it to anyone’s scrutiny just yet.

“Hey, Boyle,” Jake cuts in as Charles waxes poetic on the original Dutch frying technique for olykoek (the pre-cursor to the modern donut, apparently) “all this talk about jelly reminds me I haven’t gotten my mom any Hanukkah presents. Or bought candles. Or figured out when Hanukkah actually starts this year. So I’m gonna go run and do that! Have fun washing Genevieve’s hair tonight. Send me this review before it goes out in your newsletter!” 

He springs up and leaves before Boyle has a chance to formulate a longer response than a confused “bye, Jake!”

He forces himself to walk casually for a full block before checking his phone to see if he’s even heading in the right direction. The lock screen informs him of 2 new texts from Amy Santiago.

_I’m at Jax’s Cup on Bergen Street._

_Be here till 6ish._

He picks up the pace, proud of himself for intuitively having headed in approximately the right direction.

She looks up almost immediately when he enters the front door of the narrow and impeccably clean coffee shop, as if her exercise instructor spidey senses still pick up his awkward movements when they’re not calisthenics-related. She smiles broadly and waves him over as she pulls scattered papers, books, and notes into piles, clearing half of the table and a seat for him.

Once he’s sitting but before he has a chance to open his mouth, she’s talking to him at high speed.

“I’m sorry about last night. And I’m sorry about getting your phone number from the class list. I may have a little bit lied to Kylie to get it. I’m just in a weird, busy,” she gestures at all of the papers around her “place right now, and also I wasn’t sure if you were actually interested and I’m sure it’s a professional boundary violation as well for me to have a crush on a student.”

Jake feels the corners of his mouth turning up involuntarily when she mentions the word crush. She notices the impending grin and glances down at some of her impeccably neat handwritten notes, a slight blush rising in her cheeks.

“I could stop coming to class,” Jake suggests, “If that would fix the boundary problem. It’s possible I mainly kept going because I had a smidge of a crush on the instructor. Though I must admit it’s kind of nice to be all swole now.” He flexes his bicep exaggeratedly and winks at Amy, hoping she doesn’t mistake his joke bravado for actual arrogance.  

The exhale while he waits for her response feels eternal, and then she rolls her eyes at him with a smile that makes him feel ten years younger.

“I’m starving,” she says. “I’ve been living on coffee and stale pastries since class ended at 10 this morning. Any chance you want to grab some dinner? I have time for a little study break to refuel.”

“That sounds great,” Jake replies.

Amy stands and begins to gather her things. It’s an elaborate process that involves three different binders and a batch of multi-colored folders. Jake almost offers to help her, but gets the sense that the offer might not be well received.  

They walk to a pizza place a few blocks away, and Amy makes merciless fun of Jake’s odd pizza habits (like most New Yorkers, Amy is horrified when he orders his pizza display temperature). Once she’s done ribbing him, though, the conversation slows. Jake wonders if maybe the endorphins and then the alcohol have been skewing their perceptions of each other. After he messes up the retelling of one of his favorite cases of all time, Amy glances obviously at her watch, and he offers to walk her home. She declines again, apologizing about her schedule and her distraction. They share an awkward farewell hug in the doorway of restaurant before each turning and walking in the exact same direction.

Jake laughs awkwardly. “I can go home a different way?”

“Don’t be ridiculous.”

They walk quietly for half a block, and Jake almost jumps in surprise when Amy speaks again as she prepares to turn the corner where their paths split last night. “Do you want to come in for a bit? I have hot cocoa.”  

He agrees, and the silence between them resumes as they approach a 1960s apartment building.  

“Grad student housing,” she explains as she fishes her keys out of her purse. “Not beautiful, but I have a one bedroom apartment on a stipend, so I don’t complain.”

The entryway and halls of the building are empty, and are a little but shabby but neat (except for an overflowing lost and found bin peaking out of the mail room). “Fourth floor,” Amy says, and while Jake swears he saw an elevator, she heads straight to the stairs. Her green metal door is undecorated, unlike that of her neighbor, who seems to have been unable to decide on a type of wreath and instead placed three in different places on the door.

The apartment revealed as she steps inside is, like her handwriting, neat as a pin, though it looks as if it were decorated by an 80-year-old rather than a woman in her late twenties. There is a china cabinet (what kind of graduate student has a china cabinet?) filled with tea cups, and doilies on the kitchen table, as well as a stiff-looking floral sofa in the adjoining living room. Amy places her bag next to the shoe rack, and gestures to Jake to take off his shoes as she removes hers and places them at the end of a neat row of equally sensible ankle boots, sneakers, and rain shoes. He’s about to ask what he should do with his coat when she turns and kisses him. The press of her lips to his sends a jolt through his whole body; he feels as if he’s been shaken out of an accidental nap.  

He leans his torso towards her, wanting to deepen the kiss, and tries to take off his coat behind his back at the same time. The awkward movement makes him shuffle his feet and turn his head sort of sideways, and he can feel her laugh vibrate on his lips.   

“Let me help you with that,” she says, pulling back from him and hanging his coat gently on a wall hook.

The very warm apartment somehow feels cold with her even a few feet away from him, and as soon as the coat is placed he moves towards her, closing the gap between their bodies and wrapping her in an embrace as they begin to kiss again. He can almost feel her body softening in his arms, her hips snug against his thighs, his fingertips soaking up the feeling of the muscles of her back, wanting to drift down towards her butt, unsure of whether that would be moving too fast. The answer becomes clear when she slips her hands under his hoodie, her fingers scrambling to make sense of the number of layers he has on.

He disconnects from the kiss and glances down at her, “Should I take off my shirt?”

“Absolutely,” she replies, her voice an octave lower than it was just a few minutes ago. And then somehow his skin is touching her skin, and the ability to order his thoughts is gone, replaced by the overwhelming sensation of Amy Santiago in his hands and on his chest and in his mouth.

“Hey didn’t you say you had work to do?” he asks suddenly, untangling their limbs, apparently unable to filter out the first coherent thought to cross his mind in the past several minutes.

“Shut up,” she responds, then takes him by the hand and pulls him into the darkness of her bedroom.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry this took 5000 years to post. Hope it was enjoyable!


	5. The Morning After

Sunlight is streaming through Amy’s window, which is strange because she usually remembers to close the blackout curtains on Saturday nights, since Sunday is her one day to sleep in. She rolls over onto her side to try to shield her eyes from the light and nearly ends up on top of a sleeping Jake Peralta. She sighs deeply and decides that she might as well get up and make some coffee.

Amy thinks over her options as the old-school percolator drifts to life, the earthy aroma of coffee soothing her nerves as she waits for Jake to wake up. She walks over to her desk and thumbs through her notecard collection before opening her computer and beginning to read over her notes from yesterday. She really should work on grading student essays, but she can focus so much more easily on her thesis, and it will be good to be distracted. She’s in the midst of rearranging a not-strictly necessary paragraph on Monet’s _The Gare Saint-Lazare_ when the coffee maker buzzes to signal that the pot is done brewing. She gets up and pours herself a cup, adding sugar and cream in a long-practiced morning routine before tip-toeing to the door of her room to peak in and see if there are any signs of Jake waking up. She doesn’t usually have this problem- recently her sexual exploits have been very limited in number and located at other people’s houses so that she can use school as an excuse to not stay over.

Jake is still fast asleep by all appearances: he’s sprawled out face down on the left side of her bed, one arm hanging off the side, his curly hair rumpled from a combination of sleep and her tousling it last night. His flannel shirt is crumpled in a ball on the floor, and on instinct she picks it up, shakes it out and folds it, placing it gently next to his feet at the end of the bed.

Even though she is moving quietly, he begins to stir. She quickly steps back towards the kitchen, not wanting him to think she was watching him sleep. She fidgets with her keyboard protector and notecards, trying to keep her hands busy and look undisturbed from her work. In what feels like hours but is in fact two minutes, she hears the door of her bedroom creak open, and turns to see Jake in his boxers and socks, flannel shirt open over his bare chest, yawning in the middle of her kitchen. There’s a brief wave of sensation in her lower abdomen. She’s not sure if it’s lust or just a sort of warm affection she’s not used to feeling, and she pushes it down because it is sort of making her want to kiss him again, and she knows that’s not a good idea.   

“You’re up early,” Jake says in his sleepy voice. “That coffee smells amazing.”

“I hope I didn’t wake you,” she replies, not moving away from the desk. “And you can have some!” She turns to the china cabinet, happy to have even this small distraction. “How do you take it?”

“Cream and sugar,” he responds, so she pulls out the guest sugar bowl and spoon as well as the cream from the fridge, then passes him a steaming mug.

He pours several heaping spoonfuls of sugar into his cup. Amy tries not to let her mild horror show on her face. How is she so into this guy she really knows nothing about? And how does he not have roughly a million cavities? Oh god, maybe he does have a million cavities, and all of his dysregulated mouth bacteria is currently floating around in her mouth. She shakes her head at the thought.

“Something wrong?” Jake asks as he stirs in the milk. Of course he noticed, he’s a freaking detective.

“You put kind of a lot of sugar in your coffee,” she replies, a slight blush creeping onto her cheeks.  

“I can’t compete with how sweet you are,” he recoils at his own terrible line. “I’m sorry about that. Humor as a defense mechanism.” He stirs the coffee some more, and leaves the spoon in the mug as he takes a sip. “I had a really good time last night.” 

“About that,” Amy starts, afraid that if she waits longer she’ll go back to kissing him and then end up walking hand-in-hand Christmas window shopping for the day rather than back to work. His face falls, so she begins to explain faster. “It was definitely a good time! Like, really good. So much better than I expected, honestly. But I just have a lot going on in my life right now. I’m not sure that I can do a real ‘relationship’,” she puts in the air quotes and then continues “I’d love to hang out again though!”

“Cool cool cool. You just want me for my body, Santiago?” he deadpans.

“Of course not, I value you as a person, and,” she sputters before he cuts her off.

“I can do the friends with benefits thing. I get it,” he laughs. “Honestly, police hours aren’t really cut out for new relationships either.”

“Awesome,” she replies, relieved.

“I’ll go find my shirt,” he says, as if only just now realizing his chest is bare.

She turns away, giving him some space to stumble around the apartment looking for his various clothing items, and pointing him in the right direction for the bathroom before he had to ask. He reappears in the kitchen a few minutes later, fully dressed yet looking somehow more disheveled and self-conscious than previously.

“Thanks for the coffee, Amy. I guess I’ll head out now.”

“No problem. See you around?” she replies, knowing he will nod yes, but uncertain as to whether or not she’ll actually ever see him again.

“Yeah, I signed up for the next block of classes!” He smiles enthusiastically. “I have it on good authority that the teacher has a soft spot for me.”  

“Don’t bet on that,” she laughs as she opens the front door. Jake bends over to pick up his shoes, and they meet, inches apart, in the entryway. He leans in and plants a peck of a kiss on  her cheek. To her surprise she has to resist pulling him in for a deeper kiss or for a hug.

He seems to have no such sentiments because a second later he’s halfway down the stairs, waving at her and then disappearing as he turns the corner to the next flight.

She heads back to the kitchen and the coffee pot, before realizing that the pot is empty, and that Jake’s half-sugar coffee confection is sitting on her table, only one-third consumed. Men, she thinks, never worth it, and then gets the grounds out of the cupboard to make another pot. She’s not going to let this distract her from her work today.

And at first it’s fine. She powers through this chapter’s edits and is about to resume the grading she abandoned yesterday when she is overtaken by the urge to text Jake and ask him how the rest of his Sunday morning is going. So she stands up, paces the room, then breaks into a series of lunges and push-ups. While doing the push-ups she catches a glimpse of a dust bunny out of the corner of her eye, which leads to a thorough sweep, vacuum, and mop of the kitchen floor. An hour later she’s almost forgotten about texting Jake but has still not made any progress on the undergrad papers. She wonders whether going for a short run would help her focus more or just waste time, since running is her least favorite form of exercise.

Her phone buzzes and she almost jumps across the room to check who’s texting her, only to discover that it is a curt email from Professor Wunch inquiring about the status of the final papers. Amy sighs and sits down at her desk. It’s going to be a long day.  

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry so short! I've been itching to update but not had a lot of time. My thought is 1-2 more short chapters soon-ish, then a longer break again and some longer chapters along with it. My love and appreciation for those still following this story.


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